When All We Can Do Is Sing

This past fall we observed the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And so there were the expected reviews in the news media of the events leading up to, surrounding, and following that remarkable and largely unforeseen event. One of the items that was routinely left out of those reviews, however, was the weeks of peaceful protests by the citizens of Leipzig that led up to the fall.

Gathering on Monday evenings by candlelight around St. Nikolai church – the church where Bach composed so many of his cantatas – they would sing, and over two months their numbers grew from a little more than a thousand people to more than three hundred thousand. Over half the citizens of the city, singing songs of hope and protest and justice, until their song shook the powers of their nation and changed the world.

Some time after the fall, a journalist asked one of the commanders of the East German secret police why they hadn’t crushed these protests like they had so many others. He replied, “We had no contingency plans for song.”

Sometimes, all we can do is sing.

The story of God coming to Earth – God becoming human – is I think a story that is best told in song. Tonight we will sing (at 5:00 – 5 different carols and hear the kids sing 3 others) (at 7:00 – 8 different carols and hear 3 others) as we make our way through the story.

My favorites have always been the bright ones: O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark the Herald. And then there are the carols of praise – Go Tell It On a Mountain or Angels We Have Heard on High.

But if we’re to be honest, about ourselves and the Christmas story, we need to also sing carols like In the Bleak Midwinter that reminds us that Christ came not only for the joyful but also the despairing.

God still comes amid the bleakness of our life and world, and it’s helpful to remember that this season is for many of us a mixture of joy and regret, of reunion and strife, of hopes and disappointments, of companionship and loneliness. Some of you have lost loved ones this year, or struggle with depression, or can’t find work, or worry over the bleak headlines of the news.

If this is you, I pray that through the singing of the story, you are reminded that God comes to us precisely where we are broken. And as God comes and Christ is born again in our lives and in our world, I also pray that you will be on the lookout for how this grace, and the truth of God’s love for you, can change you.

Because that’s why it happened in the first place. If this were just a story or just a song, it never would have gotten past the entrance to the cave where Jesus was born. If it were just a story – there would be no story.

God came to Earth to change things –
and change things he did!
revolutions occurred
diseases were healed forgiveness is bestowed
slaves became free
lives are saved
hope becomes a reality…

It doesn’t always happen in a lightening bolt / shazam-y sort of way – in fact I wonder if the most lasting and profound change Christ brings happen slowly over time.

There’s a short story called “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (Bret Harte), which takes place during the days of the Wild West in California. Roaring Camp was the meanest, toughest Mining Town in all the west. It was inhabited entirely by men … except for one woman – an Indian woman whose name was Cherokee Sal.

Eventually, Cherokee Sal became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy. She died in childbirth, and no one knew who the father might be. The men put the baby boy in a box with some old rags under him. Somehow that just didn’t seem right, so one of the men rode 80 miles to buy a Rosewood Cradle.

When they put the rags and the baby in the beautiful new cradle, the rags just didn’t look right. So another man rode to Sacramento and purchased some silk and lacy blankets. The men lined the Rosewood Cradle with silk and tucked the new blanket around the little baby – they named him “Luck.”

But then someone noticed that the floor under the cradle looked dirty. The next thing you knew, a few of those big, tough men got down on their hands and knees and scrubbed the floor until it was spotless. Of course, then the walls and the ceiling … and the dirty windows looked awful. So they washed down the walls and the ceiling, and they even hung some clean white curtains on the windows.

Things were beginning to look a lot better. And, since babies shouldn’t be left alone, they began to take the cradle with them out to where they were digging and working, by the entrance of the Mine and one of the men stayed next to him while the others worked.

Then somebody noticed how ugly the mine entrance was. So they planted some flowers and made a small garden near the cradle. And as they worked, the men looked for shiny little stones that they could show to baby Luck and watch him gurgle and coo.

But when they held the stones down near him, they saw that their hands looked black and dirty.
And they didn’t want to scare the little baby with their scraggly hair and wild beards. So they began washing and shaving.

Soon they realized they also had to give up their carousing, fighting and swearing. After all, the baby needed a lot of sleep, and babies can’t sleep during a brawl. Besides all that, the baby didn’t like angry voices or frowning faces. So the men started smiling and talking in pleasant, cheerful tones.

Baby Luck changed everything. But the story The Luck of Roaring Camp is just that – a story.

Baby Jesus – who he grew into the man Jesus is real – and tonight we sing of the freedom, hope, joy and love that he brings. And in the weeks as well. Come back on Sunday when we’ll sing your requested favorite Carols. This news is too good to only sing about once. And because, sometimes all you can do is sing!

Whatever brought you here tonight – whether devotion, habit, tradition, emptiness, curiosity, loneliness, joy…. God was born for you – not just 2,000 years ago – but tonight as well. Look for him, you will find him – he’s already found you.

I leave you with a poem by Madeline L’Engle (author of A Wrinkle in Time)

First Coming

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

~Madeleine L’Engle

God Bless You and Merry Christmas!

Amen.